What is ID?

[Colter]

I believe that there are feelings that we give the name "love." We describe certain actions as "loving" and our understanding of both of these things largely overlap with one another. So I don't have to have faith that love "exists," at least as we understand it. "Love" is a name we give to a experiences we absolutely have. Now, if I made a claim about the origin of love and I believed it to be true with insufficient evidence, then it would require faith.

So conversely, you can describe "God" as the experiences you have. Nobody will contest that you actually had the experiences. But as soon as you claim to know the origins of of the experiences but have no evidence for them, that requires faith.

Right, faith-trust is essential, finites in the shadow of the infinite don't have any choice.

If you ever experience God then we will have that in common yet still require faith for the unknowns.

 

[Colter]

Dictionary dot com:

1.
a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2.
a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.


Sounds about right.



It demonstrably does. It exists as a property of human behaviour / emotion.
It, however, does NOT exist as an independent entity apart from humans - which you claim your god is!

Sorry, that description doesn't prove the existence of Love, you might just be imagining love because other people tell you that it exists.

But we've all experienced love and can call it an emotion. Those of us who have experienced God can call it an experience.

 

[Gene Parmesan]

Right, faith-trust is essential, finites in the shadow of the infinite don't have any choice.

If you ever experience God then we will have that in common yet still require faith for the unknowns.

Faith comes in when I choose to believe in something I can't support. I've only acknowledged that I experience love and it seems like others do too. I can also be fairly confident that our research thus far has shown what we call "love" can be, at least in part, viewed scientifically by ways of brain activity and chemicals. And that it can be manipulated with the same. So I have a level of confidence that love is, at least partially related to our brain and chemistry. I won't assert that that 100% explains "love" but the parts that can be shown are what I have confidence in. Anything unknown I refuse to ascribe a source to until it has been demonstrated.

I have had experiences that I have ascribed to God during my decades as a believer. But I now understand them in light of things like the placebo effect and similar fallacious ways of thinking. I would never question that a believer had "experiences."

 

[Colter]

"The prepersonal divine spirit which indwells the mortal mind carries, in its very presence, the valid proof of its actual existence, but the concept of the divine personality can be grasped only by the spiritual insight of genuine personal religious experience. Any person, human or divine, may be known and comprehended quite apart from the external reactions or the material presence of that person." UB 1955

 

[Colter]

Faith comes in when I choose to believe in something I can't support. I've only acknowledged that I experience love and it seems like others do too. I can also be fairly confident that our research thus far has shown what we call "love" can be, at least in part, viewed scientifically by ways of brain activity and chemicals. And that it can be manipulated with the same. So I have a level of confidence that love is, at least partially related to our brain and chemistry. I won't assert that that 100% explains "love" but the parts that can be shown are what I have confidence in. Anything unknown I refuse to ascribe a source to until it has been demonstrated.

I have had experiences that I have ascribed to God during my decades as a believer. But I now understand them in light of things like the placebo effect and similar fallacious ways of thinking. I would never question that a believer had "experiences."

I realize that as man discovers more about the material universe and his own material existence we are tempted to assign all things to the laws of the material cosmos, but that theory is not accurate. There is reality between the particles which rest upon the particles.

I find this a helpful refutation of materialism:

After Pentecost: Paper 195, The Urantia Book

 

[Gene Parmesan]

I realize that as man discovers more about the material universe and his own material existence we are tempted to assign all things to the laws of the material cosmos, but that theory is not accurate. There is reality between the particles which rest upon the particles.

I find this a helpful refutation of materialism:

After Pentecost: Paper 195, The Urantia Book

I did not claim it was entirely material. That's just the part that we can know. I make no absolute claim about the source of love because I lack the proper evidence to do so. That doesn't mean I need faith to believe that the feelings I have are real, and I choose to refer to them as love. And I can acknowledge how these emotions relate to the physical world without leaning on "faith." But if you want to ascribe "love" to a specific deity though, that requires faith.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sorry, that description doesn't prove the existence of Love,

I didn't say it did. You asked to define it. So I defined it.

you might just be imagining love because other people tell you that it exists.

I do not. Love is a demonstrably real emotion in humans.

But we've all experienced love and can call it an emotion. Those of us who have experienced God can call it an experience.

The difference is that the existance of love (again: as a property of humans) can be demonstrated.

 

[Colter]

I did not claim it was entirely material. That's just the part that we can know. I make no absolute claim about the source of love because I lack the proper evidence to do so. That doesn't mean I need faith to believe that the feelings I have are real, and I choose to refer to them as love. And I can acknowledge how these emotions relate to the physical world without leaning on "faith." But if you want to ascribe "love" to a specific deity though, that requires faith.

I understand. In an experiential ascendant universe, finites have no choice other than to rely on faith in Absolutes.

 

[Gene Parmesan]

I understand. In an experiential ascendant universe, finites have no choice other than to rely on faith in Absolutes.

Yes. I think this is the point where we agree. However since I don't see faith as a reliable path to belief it's where we diverge. Always a pleasure chatting with you.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Sorry, that description doesn't prove the existence of Love

It describes what "love" is. Using that description, you can easily identify it in the real world.

you might just be imagining love because other people tell you that it exists.

Nope.

But we've all experienced love and can call it an emotion. Those of us who have experienced God can call it an experience.

Using the description, you'ld be perfectly capable of identifying it in the real world, without ever experiencing it for yourself.

 

[Colter]

It describes what "love" is. Using that description, you can easily identify it in the real world.



Nope.



Using the description, you'ld be perfectly capable of identifying it in the real world, without ever experiencing it for yourself.

nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.


God is Love. But love is not God, God is much mo

"Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father."



"The prepersonal divine spirit which indwells the mortal mind carries, in its very presence, the valid proof of its actual existence, but the concept of the divine personality can be grasped only by the spiritual insight of genuine personal religious..." UB 1955


"But the love of God is an intelligent and farseeing parental affection. The divine love functions in unified association with divine wisdom and all other infinite characteristics of the perfect nature of the Universal Father. God is love, but love is not God. The greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed in the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, but your greatest revelation of the Father's love is seen in the bestowal life of his Son Michael as he lived on earth, the ideal spiritual life. It is the indwelling Adjuster who individualizes the love of God to each human soul." UB 1955

 

[DogmaHunter]

nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion and indispensable to any hope of personality survival.

The concept of god is only relevant to the religious.

Contrast that with gravity for example. Whether you believe it exists or not - you're still gonna want to use a parachute when jumping out of an airplane.

 

[Colter]

The concept of god is only relevant to the religious.

Contrast that with gravity for example. Whether you believe it exists or not - you're still gonna want to use a parachute when jumping out of an airplane.

There is also a form of spiritual gravity which draws all who respond to truth over error.

"7:1.3 Spirit realities respond to the drawing power of the center of spiritual gravity in accordance with their qualitative value, their actual degree of spirit nature. Spirit substance (quality) is just as responsive to spirit gravity as the organized energy of physical matter (quantity) is responsive to physical gravity. Spiritual values and spirit forces are real. From the viewpoint of personality, spirit is the soul of creation; matter is the shadowy physical body." UB 1955